Lesley Turner
Cellular Automata: Rule 30, 2011
Hemp, rayon, wool , cotton 35" h x 21" w
Women’s creative output is under-represented in most galleries and museums. Traditionally their work has been sacrificed to protect and care for others. These towels are a metaphor for women’s work and are intended to be displayed alongside a mountain landscape painting. Physicists and biologists work with 256 rules that govern the reproduction of life forms. By using Rule 30 as a knitting pattern it generated a mountain landscape reminiscent of the Rocky Mountains.
Lesley Turner
Tree As A Being, 2020
Vintage table napkins, tree-stained cloth, cotton thread 108" h x 108" w
Washington poet, Bill Yake, wrote ‘The Tree As Verb’ to describe the physical actions trees are capable of. I translated each of those verbs into an expressive embroidered line on a fragment of tree-stained cloth. Each embroidery is attached to a perfectly laundered vintage napkin connecting the activities of a living tree with nurturing activities within the home. The napkins hang together as a community making up a tree shape.
Lesley Turner
Dialogue I, 2019
Vintage cotton bedsheet, composted doily, cotton thread 32" h x 32" w
Doilies become soiled, torn, and worn out with use. They are sacrificed to protect our household possessions. This doily became decayed and composted while lying on forest soil. It was then lightly laundered and conserved as if it was a museum artifact and hand-stitched to a soil-stained support cloth. This work speaks to valuing our natural environment just as we care for precious possessions in our homes.
Lesley Turner
Wind Drawings – Douglas-fir, Cedar, Maple, 2018
Vintage cotton bedsheets; cashmere, silk, wool, cotton, linen, polyester threads; ink 31" h x 97" w - allowing a 2" distance between each, Distance is variable to fit space.
A piece of cloth buried under each of the trees became stained by organic soil processes. It was laundered, stretched, and held up to a branch with an ink-dipped brush tied to it, on a windy day. The resulting ‘wind drawing’ by each tree is supported by stitches evoking the tree’s leaves found on the ground after strong winds. The cloth is mounted on a bedsheet as a reference to our home being not only the house we live in - our home extends to the natural environment we are surrounded by.
Lesley Turner
Wind Drawing – Cedar, 2018
Vintage cotton bedsheets; cotton, polyester threads; ink 31" w x 31" h
A piece of cloth buried under a cedar tree became stained by organic soil processes. It was laundered, stretched, and held up to a branch with an ink-dipped brush tied to it, on a windy day. The resulting ‘wind drawing’ by the tree is supported by stitches evoking the tree’s leaves found on the ground after strong winds. The cloth is mounted on a bedsheet as a reference to our home being not only the house we live in - our home extends to the natural environment we are surrounded by.
Lesley Turner
Wind Drawing – Douglas-fir, 2017
Vintage cotton bedsheets; cotton, hemp, linen, tencel threads; ink 31" h x 31" w
A piece of cloth buried under a Douglas-fir tree became stained by organic soil processes. It was laundered, stretched, and held up to a branch with an ink-dipped brush tied to it, on a windy day. The resulting ‘wind drawing’ by the Douglas-fir tree is supported by stitches evoking the tree’s leaves found on the ground after strong winds. The cloth is mounted on a bedsheet as a reference to our home being not only the house we live in - our home extends to the natural environment we are surrounded by.
Lesley Turner
Wind Drawing – Maple, 2018
Vintage cotton bedsheets; cashmere, silk, wool threads; ink 31" h x 31" w
A piece of cloth buried under a maple tree became stained by organic soil processes. It was laundered, stretched, and held up to a the tree's branch with an ink-dipped brush tied to it, on a windy day. The resulting ‘wind drawing’ is supported by stitches evoking the tree’s leaves found on the ground after strong winds. The cloth is mounted on a bedsheet as a reference to our home being not only the house we live in - our home extends to the natural environment we are surrounded by.
Lesley Turner
Forest Flowers, 2015
cotton bed sheets, earth dyes, vintage cotton thread, acrylic paint 72" h x 38" w
Mushrooms are the flowers of mycorrhizal fungi. Dense mats of branching fungi live in harmony with trees playing a vital role in the health of the forest ecosystem. My use of domestic linens draws attention to the importance of making the connection between caring for our family home and caring for our one and only earth home.
Lesley Turner
Forest Reliquary, 2014
vintage cotton tablecloth, earth dyes, leaf skeletons, deer bones, maple samaras, fern spores, cotton thread 28" h x 16" w
A reliquary is a container of holy relics or objects, with the purpose of display or protection. This forest reliquary displays the life cycle symbols of growth, decay, death, and regeneration.
Lesley Turner
Earth Repair, 2017
vintage table cloth, anonymous hand embroidery, leaf skeletons, wax, polyester thread 36"h x 34"w
To stitch is to repair. Just as garments are stitched and mended to extend their useful lives so is the earth’s soil seasonally repaired with fallen leaves and branches. This was an ongoing project where I added another layer of mending over 4 years.
